Man Sentenced to Five Years for Trying to Kill Girlfriend

Jose Ortega has been sentenced to five years in state prison for the 2010 attempted murder of his longtime girlfriend.

Police received a call of a stabbing assault, and arrived to a residence at 800 W Mission Street to find a woman with deep puncture wounds to her face and head. Authorities believed the woman, his former girlfriend and mother of his five-year-old, had moved out of a place the couple recently shared, and into her parents’ home. He showed up just before 2 a.m. one morning in May 2010 wanting to see the child, and entered through an unlocked door.

He walked up to the victim, according to police, who was asleep on a sofa, and began to stab her. He was chased out the front door by her relatives.

Authorities connected a wrecked and abandoned SUV that had run off the road and crashed into a retaining wall in the Montecito area to Ortega, and a helicopter and search dogs were brought in to find him. He was eventually tracked to a friend’s home on the Eastside and arrested roughly seven hours after the original call came in.

Prosecutor Ali Neuffer said Ortega will serve 85 percent of the sentence. The victim, according to Neufer, was supportive of the sentence, and was hopeful Ortega could be involved in their daughter’s life in the future. Neuffer also said Ortega was extremely remorseful from the beginning.